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Almost everyone with a website wants to be number 1 in the search engines, which of course isn’t possible. That’s the point of search engines!

That’s also why Google make $24bn a year and are currently doubling that number every two years. Nice work if you can get it. I mean, that’s the sort of cash it takes to bail out a bank…

Whether you’re contributing to this figure by advertising with them or not, optimising your site to do better in the natural (non paid) search engine results pages is a good idea if you want to succeed / grow / do more of what you do.

Here are six things you can do today.

1. Sort out your Keyword List

Probably the most important thing you need to do. It’s easy to put this off and start tinkering straight away before you research but lets be clear about that – if you don’t know what your high value keywords are, what is it that you’re optimising?...

2. Get analytics.

If you don’t measure, how will you know if you’re doing any good? Or bad for that matter…

Go here: http://www.google.com/analytics/ and create a Google Analytics account. Add the <code snip> to your site or get your web guy to do it.

Already got analytics in place? Use it!

Obviously it’s nice to know whether your traffic is trending up or down, but you need to get intimate with the reports! For the sake of a couple of hours spent learning your way around analytics, you will be rewarded with detailed knowledge of your market - who uses your website*, how they use it and how they found it.

Use the data to fine tune your keywords list. Sometimes, you will see users finding you with unexpected keywords – pay attention! – that could be a market knocking on your door.

3. Put some time in the diary.

This may sound blatantly obvious but it’s one of the main reasons why most people attempting to optimise a site fail to get anywhere.

How important is improving search engine performance to you?

How much time can you afford to put aside? One or two hours a week? A month?

Put it in the diary and stick to it.

4. Build Links.

Without doubt, the number and quality of inbound links (Links To your site FROM another site) is one of the most influential factors affecting your ranking. Not all links are equal, however. It’s much better to have links from sites which themselves have plenty of good quality inbound links. One of the reasons that search engines, (Google in particular) place so much emphasis on this is that it’s so difficult to fake. There are plenty of ways to go about building links but the most important place to start is creating content which is worth linking to. Which leads nicely into...

5. Create great content & add your keywords to it.

The majority of websites which languish in obscurity are often short of interesting and original content. Take a cold, dispassionate look at your site and ask yourself this: “If I were in charge of organising the entire world’s information, where would I rank it?”. If your content doesn’t measure up, neither will your rank so make sure you have great content.

6. Get some help.

You don’t have to hire an external SEO consultant but if you decide not to, you still need some help. Whether it’s a colleague in sales, a friend at a newspaper or a friendly blogger, outside influencers are important and even a light touch from someone else can be just the help you need.

7. Learn and be curious.

There are plenty of good resources around – this is the internet after all. Search Engine Optimisation is a very, very big subject so be prepared if you decide to manage it all yourself.

Search marketing is a big subject but it’s a powerful and interesting one. Each of these tips is something you can begin to influence practically today. What are you waiting for!